Who will you vote for? This year is election year and many people can't decide what they are going to vote for. A big influence on young people's opinions are their parents and environment. But how much does it matter? And what does the young people of today think about prejudice in today's political environment? Out of the 4 people I interviewed when writing this article, three admitted to having stereotypes of people whose views don't align with theirs. The first person I interviewed was a 17 year old boy from Danderyd. In Danderyd's kommun Moderaterna, Liberalerna och Kristdemokraterna are mostly in control, which means it's a right leaning municipality. He was right leaning as well and confessed his parents were too. He said that he liked Moderaterna because of their economic policies. 

When I asked about his prejudice against people who vote left he was hesitant at first. But when I asked him to describe the stereotypical left leaning person he said: "Blue hair, vegan, nose piercing, things like that". The second person I interviewed was a 17 year old boy from Täby who wanted to vote for Sverigedemokraterna. He also mentioned the economic policies as well as harsher penalties for criminals and a lower age for criminal liability. When I proposed that he wanted justice, he explained he was thinking more about safety, however I thought this was a bit contradictory considering a trial in Denmark showed that lowering the age of criminal liability had the opposite effect and instead pushed crime further down in age, and caused more young people to preform bad in or drop out of school. His family where also right leaning but didn't discuss a lot of politics at home and similarly to the first person he didn't admit to having any prejudice.

The two last people I interviewed where both left leaning and had similar opinions. The third person shared she was going to vote left because she liked the environmental, economic, tax and immigration politics of the left. She had also done a "valkompass" which is a test to see what political parties you agree with more. She stated that the both of her parents were left leaning and surprisingly she admitted right away to having some prejudice against the right. She thought right voters were "snobby, upper class, all-Swedish and influenced by other people". She lives in a left leaning municipality where Socialdemokraterna, another local party and Liberalerna is in control. The fourth girl also said her parents were left leaning and similarly admitted to having prejudice against right leaning people. But does this affect her political opinions? I asked her what her parents voted for and she said the left, just like the other girl who wanted to vote left, while the two other people that voted right also had right leaning parents. 

So is this really a coincidence? The psychological reason behind this could be the childhood, there is a psychological phenomenon called repetition compulsion. Reptation compulsion is to unconsciously strive for recreating early emotional relationships, such as the one with your parents, because familiarity feels safe. For example, if you had avoidant parents, you might feel uncomfortable with affection in a relationship, although that's actually what you would like. So instead you might choose an avoidant partner, because the familiar feels safe. There is no study linking this directly to politics, but I speculated that this phenomenon might be true in other aspects too. Choosing to feel a certain way about something or take a specific side that feels familiar and therefore safer is something I think a lot of people do or at least observe in society. Wanting to stick with your group, and being afraid of judgement and being cast out is something normal in human nature. It seems common on social media that some specific stereotypes are used to deter people from political parties. Such as the left being "soft", emotional and detached from reality, and in contrast, the right being snobby, upper-class and unempathetic. This may lead to certain demographics not voting for a party they don't want to be associated with.

Additionally, a hostile political environment that radicalizes people might also lead to picking sides, instead of discussing facts or solutions. This creates division and less opportunities for political parties to reach out to their audience with facts instead of insulting other politicians and defending their side. Politics has become too much of a "types of people" instead of "types of solutions" and I think the reason for this hostile political environment partially is because propaganda is very easy to create and spread with the help of social media and generative AI. And the political environment is getting more hostile mainly because of the stereotypes and prejudice people have about political parties, possibly related to their upbringing and influence by other people.